What Trafficked Girls Think of Jeffrey Epstein and His Pals

As the world follows the drip-drip of sensational revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, here’s a number to ponder: Last year the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 113,000 reports of child sex trafficking.

Yiota Souras, the center’s chief legal officer, says that while no one knows the actual number of children trafficked annually in the United States alone, “the real number is absolutely higher” than that. Most of the victims reported to her organization are 15, 16 or 17, she said, but some are as young as 11 or 12.

“This is happening in every community, in every city and state,” she added.

I’ve been speaking in the past few days with survivors of sex trafficking and those who work with them, and they’re thrilled that the Epstein files are bringing more attention to trafficking. But they’re also frustrated that the focus has been tightly on Epstein and his circle — and not on the victims or on the way we as a society enable the abuse.

We rightly condemn powerful associates of Epstein’s for their indifference to young girls being sexually assaulted. But collectively we show the same indifference, in a way that I fear leaves us complicit.

“If you told me 20 years ago that the word ‘trafficking’ and the concept of it would be on the nightly news every single night and be the national obsession, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Rachel Lloyd, who was trafficked as a teenager and once was nearly strangled to death by her pimp, told me. “But it’s bizarre to me that we’re having a national conversation about trafficking and yet it hasn’t made any difference.”

Lloyd, who now runs GEMS, an outstanding program for trafficked young women and girls, said of the increased attention: “It’s not elevating the lives of my young women. It’s not shining a light on their vulnerabilities and the things that they go through or the gaps in the systems. It’s not doing any of that.”

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Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life.” @NickKristof

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